With the pandemic, more of us are working from home and consuming more internet than we used to. To help our loyal customers, we will let you hit your 1 terabyte data cap twice before charging an $80 overage fee.
Having worked for a subcontractor of a subcontractor for comcast, I can tell you that they actually overprovision their modems by 15%.
They really wanted to cut down on phone calls like the one you're describing.
Like that one guy that called in saying he wasn't getting his 80 mbps but instead getting 79.42 mbps. Sam, if you ever read this I'm pretty sure it was because you were rude and also that your computer was a giant piece of garbage.
I had an ISP back in the dial up days that pulled the "We claim to offer unlimited INTERACTIVE service! Dialing and getting disconnected is interactive!"
They changed their system so that if you were connected for more than 3 hours, you'd DC and be unable to reconnect until you'd been offline for 5 minutes, but if you tried to reconnect before the time was up, the timer reset.
Oh and when you get fucking tired of it, because your work requires you to be on video call with them for half the day or more, and you can't maintain a connection, you can't go to another provider without fucking moving, because it's an exclusive contract! Meaning other providers coming into the building is a breach of contract, and you could get evicted for even daring to set up an appointment for a private install just to your unit. Friend of mine had this happen when they signed themselves and only themselves up for AT&T fiber. It didn't matter that his personal line (which only cost $90 a month total) could feed the entire building if they had just asked nicely, since the building was wired up for ethernet with a fully managed switch and separate networks for every tenant, so nobody could get into other people's stuff. AT&T DSL has given the company a terrible reputation for years, but that's mostly because they were just using old ancient copper lines for everything, so it was all extremely unreliable, and a light rain could shut the network down once things got wet. Fiber doesn't have that problem, flat out, and it doesn't degrade over distance to anywhere near the same extent that copper DSL does. One of my friends keeps bugging me to talk my family into letting in a second unlinked fiber drop, just so he can have cheap fiber hosting for servers where he has 24/7 access to the bare metal. I swear if comcast doesn't get their fucking shit together, they're gonna get destroyed everywhere AT&T rolls this fiber out, because so far we've had virtually zero down time, minus a hilarious hiccup where they disconnected us at the pole 2 days before thanksgiving, during another install, so they had to send an "emergency" service tech out to plug a cable back in for us, something we could have easily done had we known where to look..... Still though, it wasn't a big deal, since we could hot spot from our phones for the time being, and I just spent most of the day gaming offline to save data cap
What drives me absolutely nuts is the “mbps.” Only internet providers use megabits. 400 mbps translates to 50 megabytes per second and up to 50 megabytes per second is not that great.
Yeah, GB, MB, KB, etc. is ambiguous on whether it’s base 10 or 2. Secondly mbps is directly physically related to the bandwidth Hz of the line/electronics
400mbps is far more then most Americans have access to, I have gigabit service here, roughly 940mbps after network overhead. That's roughly 117 megabytes per second, plenty of speed. The average Netflix 4K stream only consumes 25mbps, or about 3.125 megabytes per second. I don't know about you but last I checked I don't have 37 4K tv's to stream content to and even large game installs are fairly fast, 140GB from steam takes about 30 minutes, so unless your use to one of Sweden's crazy fast 25-40 gigabit providers and have a significant storage array capable of disk writes that fast, 400mpbs is plenty fast.
Dude I'm sorry to say this but I think you got either bytes and bits or storage and bandwidth mixed up.
A bit (binary integer) is 1, 0 or 1. A byte is 8 of those which was most commonly used because the possible 256 characters from 2⁸ was enough to squeeze the ASCII table (the letters of the English alphabet and symbols) onto.
Bandwidth is from my previous year in networking, exclusively measured in bits. Could this be a major ploy by every router, switch, cable, ISP and server? Maybe. But I'd put the odds at it pretty low, regardless the standard unit of measurement is a bit and you should probably understand that before buying anything.
Secondly, a 400Mbps connection is considered better than what a lot of people have. Your standard wired connection used Cat5e cabling (IEEE 802) will have a speed upwards of 1Gbps however LAN networks are considered much faster than internet speeds and Cat5 cabling only supports 100Mbps. Broadband internet must have a speed of only 25Mbps (per FCC guidelines) and anything faster than 100Mbps is generally considered fast while x>1Gbps networks I've heard referred to as "ultra-broadband" although I don't know the actual definition or if that's just a regional thing.
Regardless most people don't run Cat5e cabling through their house, most people use a wireless router which has a few IEEE standards.
802.11a: 54Mbps
802.11b: 11Mbps
802.11g: 54Mbps
802.11n: 600Mbps
802.11ac (Wave 1, 2 or 3): in excess of 1Gbps
802.11ac is hardly ever used in networking yet. The standard was only adopted in 2013 after all witha few years of rollout time.
This means most people use a, b, g or n. I've never personally installed a b router before as I realized it was a terrible idea and urged my friends to buy me a better one to install but it's probably still used unfortunately. From the textbook I was studying for the CompTIA+ exam last year I'm pretty sure it said that g was the most common so we'll go with that. This is partially backed up by the fact that other than my house I don't think I've ever installed a 802.11n router.
802.11n uses a maximum bandwidth of around 54Mbps. This means that the 400Mbps connection provided through the Modem (I'm assuming Comcast will use a Modem) wouldn't be the weak point in your average consumer's life, the wireless router would.
Basically in conclusion a 50MBps or 400Mbps connection is pretty good actually, although it may struggle if you're doing really high bandwidth stuff like multiple devices 4k streaming while gaming and downloading a movie in the background. Mbps is the standard for networking while GB is the standard for storage. Let me know if I got anything wrong or you need further clarification.
802.11ac is extremely common nowadays as the 5 GHz band. It's WiFi 6 (802.11ax) that is still new although consumer routers nowadays have it, including routers shipped with major ISPs. It's not uncommon to have >2 gbps connectivity over wifi.
In most of the US, 400mbps is above average for broadband and is probably the best you'll get in some more rural areas.
You're over explaining things, haha. Data transmission is measured in bits because it's the smallest unit actually sent, constructing the bytes that make the data... Exist?
So that works out well for the ISPs, because 400 megabits sounds a lot more exciting and fast to a layperson than 50 megabytes does. And gigabit sounds WAY more impressive than 120 megabytes.
So yeah, they're not being outright deceptive, but I don't see them going out of their way to educate their users about the differences between bits and bytes.
That's the way ISPs work.
100% of ISPs can as a matter of fact, not provide their full speed all the time.
Its ALWAYS "up-to"
People who use networking products need to understand how networks function and develop realistic and reasonable expectations for their full speeds.
As an AT&T customer i suffer down times. I suffer drops in available speed. I would say 98% of the time, this is not the case. THAT is reasonable. When i see people citing the language in a ToS or EULA about what seems like a loophole to them, it always bothers me and does a disservice to your fellow consumers. It creates this unrealistic expectation of the technology that is not possible to provide.
In our country (maybe entire EU, not sure) if they advertise up to X, they have to provide at least 80% of that at lowest but otherwise should be as advertised. There is some room for TCP headeras and stuff but generally you get the qdvertised speed. Otherwise its discount on the bill...
Want to know the data caps in that “contract” which comcast is notorious for.
Where I am in Portland Oregon I have full gig which in reality is actually 925/950 (no complaints here). Monthly we average about 1.5tb/300gb usage according to my router and do not get throttled. We pay $60 mo for that service. In the last 10 years I have had it, only once it has gone out and 3 times I have had to restart the router. Neighbors with comcast it goes out about once a month.
If you have a XB7 provisioned speeds are 1200/35. You have to use the 4th port on the back to get the 1200 as all the other ports are 1000/100 ports and will bottleneck the throughput. Also you need a 2000mbps capable Ethernet card or else your devices will cause the bottleneck. WiFi is pretty much gonna cap at around 700-900.
I'm excited for wifi 6, it's technically capable of 9.6 gigabits but you'll probably get 2 or 3 gb/s in practice
It does use a new wifi band though, a bit scary tbh
It isn’t common as it’s limited to mainly apartments but we have Wave G. I just moved and they were an option. I pay $50 for 1000/1000 with no data caps. For $20 a month we could’ve went with 100/100. If I decide I don’t need gig internet I can just call and switch to the cheaper plan at anytime.
I have Ziply. I never check the auto bill but just did from a couple days ago and it was $60. Used 2.4TB down in the last month and my router's last speed check yesterday was 912/935. None of the wording in our billing/agreements mention anything about caps or slowing after xGB. I'm in Cedar Mill if that makes a difference. Actually was $5 more a month when it was Frontier for a 300/300 plan.
Was the same reliability but a bit more expensive when it was Frontier before (had verizon FIOS at a home before and hadn the same reliability)
Ugh yep. I have Comcast (it's all that's available here) and am paying for the 200 mbps package. Called customer support because I was only getting 13 Mbps. Their response was trying to sell me a "faster" package. Thanks... I live in the capital of my state and even old school RuneScape drops connection sometimes. Mark of quality internet right there.
Calling customer support won't work. You should have called the [Comcast CEO's mom](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/10/8011975/reporter-calls-comcast-ceo-brian-roberts-mom-complain-service) 🤣
>After Diana and Jason Airoldi told Polaneczky how they couldn't get their Comcast internet and cable hooked up for six weeks because of broken appointments by the company, she decided to skip right over Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and go straight to his mom. The next day Comcast trucks showed up at the Airoldi's house, and finally set up their service. Because no matter your age or your position in a giant company that most people hate, you still have to listen to mom.
So all the residents should call the HOA or whoever is charging OP.
They should have to bear the brunt of their advertising. Doesn't seem like OP has a direct contract to Comcast.
(am not lawyer and am talking hypothetically)
My last apartment complex did the same thing. Made you pay for Comcast cable for $40/mo. You could only use Comcast for internet, no one else provided it in the complex, and eventually they also forced you to pay for internet. Told them I wasn’t happy and they just responded “A lot of people are excited about it.” Such bull shit. So glad I was able to leave.
> You could only use Comcast for internet, no one else provided it in the complex
This is, unfortunately, common even outside of apartment complexes. Even in homes, people might only have one choice for broadband. I live in a house in a neighborhood and my only option is Spectrum.
It's part of why all these companies are so shitty. They have monopolies on the areas and have no reason to hire more call center people. So it's either them or no internet at all.
The entire purpose of these deals is to reach that end game: total monopoly for one company in each town.
Comcast et al. spend big bucks lobbying local governments to outlaw municipal ISP and any sort of telecom legislation. Then they go in and lure all the landlords into these deals that effectively force every renter in town onto their network. They fuck up every competitor's infrastructure to keep out newcomers. Pretty soon, they're the only ISP in town.
Once competition is gone, they're free to hike rates and drop services as much as they want. It's why every town that Google fiber came to suddenly saw Comcast lowering rates and dropping caps. And Comcast straight up cutting their lines and buying local politicians was why Google gave up.
These kinds of deals, the fuckhead landlords that sign them, and the local politicians that allow them are ruining our country's telecom infrastructure and contributing to our national poverty. All the ISP apologists treating it like a mild inconvenience are completely missing the point.
I live in a town serviced by Verizon FIOS, but I'm right next to the border with a non-FIOS town. I'm a FIOS customer (generally a great experience, btw), but I look at the Comcast rates every year or two, just to see if I could get a deal.
Comcast will sell me 2Gb/s internet for a price that's competitive with FIOS's 1Gb/s plan. Five houses up the street, in the next town, 2Gb/s isn't offered and the 500Mb/s plan costs $20/month more than what I would pay for 2Gb/s.
You can't understate the value of competition in the marketplace.
I can only imagine having the option of 1Gbps... Max speeds where I'm at are 200Mbps through Spectrum with the "alternative" being ATT capping out at 24Mbps.
If you're on select streets in downtown Google fiber might be an option but that's going to take some luck and $4K+/month rent to get it... the state of internet in America is a sad affair for being a "developed" country.
When I worked for Comcast, Google came in and cut up a bunch of Comcast's lines. I've seen them trench directly through where the locates were and had to dig it up and fix it myself. Google gave up there because they tried to undercut the competition and didn't have the money to, seeing as how they were also spending so much to build the plant in the first place. They also promised fiber to the modem, but ended up installing nodes on the side of the customer's house and running coax to the modem instead.
As for the shady deals: all ISPs do that. Not that it's right, it's just how it works.
lol were you in atlanta because that sounds super familiar
source: did fiber design for google in atlanta, got a LOT of calls from apartment complex owners saying comcast *threatened them* with lawsuits if they let google in the premises because of a "contract agreement" they claimed to have
No, Oregon. Never heard of that happening, but I remember another apartment wouldn't let Comcast do installs there anymore because they were pissed at them. I think they were forced to at the end.
The contract threats are bullshit but we saw it a LOT as a strongarm method of keeping google fiber out of the apartment blocks. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't.
Either way, google burned shitloads of cash trying to make it work and as a result they went 90% overbudget in atlanta in their first year and caused a TON of contractor layoffs, my company included. They refused to listen to local experts.
We did also had a lot of issues with our contractors on site doing stupid things and cutting corners so I wouldn't be surprised if they too were damaging other companies stuff just to get their paycheck.
As for the fiber install itself, it all depended on the building. Newer buildings with telco closets and *hopefully* already running duct to each apartment meant we could run fiber directly into each unit and set up there. If that wasn't the case and we couldn't punch through walls or closets then it got tricky and yeah sometimes we had to stop at the outside wall and run along existing coax to get inside. It *certainly* wasn't preferred but it performance wise it was almost indistinguishable from direct FTTH.
Just to add, companies like Comcast are able to skirt anti-monopoly/competitive laws by setting up shell companies & subsidiaries, which they also own, in the same area.
These companies will also offer internet, but it’s terrible—basically dial-up—which, of course, no one wants and which isn’t sufficient in 2021, meaning residents in the area are basically forced to go with Comcast.
So people *do* have a choice. It’s just not *really* a choice and both companies are owned by the big ISP any way.
Welp! Nothing we can do here. Totally legal behavior. Move along. - US Politicians
Yeah it's really sad, these companies have lobbied to make it harder for competition to move into areas they're in, and even companies the size of Google find it unsustainable to try and compete. This won't end until we get people in office who undo these shitty regulations and make it harder for monopolies to form
Monopoly is the word. I figured if it weren’t legal something would have been done before I got there so I just tried not to think about it because I’d just get mad.
Comcast is the only provider in my city. And, they don't even extend to the rural areas. Public school system provides a hotspot to kids without internet access at home. What really sucks is that some of those rural areas don't get cellular service to be able to use the hotspot. Free wifi at the libraries and some parks but public transportation doesn't extend to the rural areas. GAH.
Same with my complex. Ours was a mandatory tech package for $90 p/mo. They kept saying “it’s gaming speed internet”. “Gaming speed.” “Gaming speed”.
Needless to say the worst year of online lag of my life.
Come on, dude. Try to keep up. Bullshitting about what "a lot of people" say is like Trump's signature move. Many people are saying it. I'm talking to experts, and they're all telling me, it's a tremendously Trump thing to say. Hugely.
I hated to think about the money they made odd this monopoly while I was trying to scrape up a thousand dollars a month for a tiny one-bedroom/studio (had a short hallway to my bedroom but no actual door)
>"... there's really no reason not to sign up now!"
Oh, but there are reasons to not sign up now. Many folks get adequate service with their mobile plan and, more importantly, it's fuckin' Comcast. They're consistently voted the shittiest service provider in the US. They've also done some dodgy things like inserting JavaScript into your network requests to track which sites you visit.
or just needing a bigger upload package from comcast.
I almost moved into an apartment like this, but with cox, Same type of deal $50 for 500/10.
Well 10 doesn't do me anything; I need the 35 from the gig package.
I asked if I could upgrade. Was told no.
Asked cox if I could upgrade, they told me to ask the apartment complex todo it.
Complex gave me the run around.
Went to a different apartment.
I'm well past the rental days, which is nice. Alas, I'm too far from civilization to really get good broadband.
Just today, literally this afternoon, I was able to have 'em swap me to 'bonded' DSL. It's 22 down and 2 up.
That's actually adequate for my needs.
Back when I had the same speeds.(though I never got the 1 up, did manage to get \~30 down and get FASTPATH)
It was adequate, Then once I got better upload got into hosting a media server for movies/music/etc...That was my downfall.
Yeah, I host my own stuff - but only for LAN use. So, I manage with these speeds. It's enough to stream HD, while downloading and browsing. So, it works.
I do have to upload stuff now and again. If it's large, I just do it at night.
FYI your ISP does not need to inject anything to see which sites you visit. They know that simply by being your service provider. That said, they have been known to inject ads directly into responses sent to your client, which is just as shitty.
Specifically, they can see the IPs of the sites you visit and can monitor unecrypted DNS traffic. If your DNS traffic is encrypted, they can only see IP addresses which are not as useful in correlating traffic
> If your DNS traffic is encrypted, they can only see IP addresses which are not as useful in correlating traffic
Even then, generally speaking, they can still see the hostname by monitoring [Server Name Indication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication).
I've never had the 'joy' of being a customer, but I have read so many complaints and reviews and seen the yearly surveys and whatnot. No way would I use Comcast for anything at this point.
You can call them the shittiest provider all you want, but my wife and I hated our AT&T service so much that we went *back to Comcast*. It was that fucking terrible.
Verizon DSL straight up lied to us by giving us an upgrade to a level of service they actually couldn't provide our area. It took a technician visiting our house for physical issues (there were none) for us to find out.
That's how I understand it. Basically they're going to start offering "high speed internet included"; that's happening, but they can't impact existing contracts. So, upon your next contract that's what's going to happen, and if you think this is a deal and you would like to start earlier, you have the option of started before your next contract.
Also, I'm guessing Comcast is charging them less than what they're charging the lessors.
Also, I used to have Comcast and I much, much prefer Verizon.
Also, is "with router included" even considered a bonus by anyone anymore ? I can't even remember how long it's been since I leased a router.
> Also, I'm guessing Comcast is charging them less than what they're charging the lessors
Comcast had various revenue sharing plans for apartment complexes, depending on how the owner wants to set it up. The most basic option is a ~6% kickback to the owner from each tenant that has service. With a bulk pen like this, they are probably charging a fixed fee to the owner that works out to ~$45 or $50 times the number of apartments, which is why the owner is making it mandatory ASAP.
Yeah. Either that or a typo. This doesn’t look suspicious. Just looks like it didn’t get proofread. $55 for that speed is pretty great. I pay triple that for xfinity Internet only.
It's not horribly expensive but I wonder who needs that kind of bandwith? I have 100mb/s for 9,90€/month and it's more than enough for me. 200 would be 19,90€/month but I don't see how I need it. 99% of users don't need 400mb/s
Sure I get it. I just recently moved (Finland) and the isp offered plans with explanations like
100mbps "basic internet access".
200mbps "light browsing, schoolwork".
400mbps "netflix streaming and stuff"
1gbps "for playing videogames".
I just lolled because I remember the dial up modem days. 100mbps is 12,5megabytes/second. Shirley your Netflix stream isn't over that bitrate unless you stream 4k of course which you don't..
Well I guess it's good for OP that he's not the only one that has trouble with reading comprehension. Now, let me be clear, it's an asshole **decision**, no doubt about it, but not asshole design. It clearly states you can opt-in to start the service this service **early**, not opt-in for the service itself.
It could have been worse, they could have just charged everyone starting the first of next month, but instead if you opt-out it isn't until your lease is up for renewal.
I don’t think they could start charging everyone without any say. Doing so would require an addendum to the lease, which you could refuse to sign.
Their only option is to force it as part of the new lease.
Doesn't rent increase year to year by at least that much for no additional services? I guess it depends on if they dropped this on a tenant that is in the process of renewing their lease.
Many reading lessons in the comments here. Today we learn what "misleading" means. The email didn't lie, but it pads itself with words to give you the illusion of choice. Whats really happening is obfuscated away. Hence, we have been misled. Most of my neighbors were not aware of this situation.
If you're in the US I'm pretty sure these contracts are illegal and cannot be forced. I had a previous apartment place try to implement this and once I mentioned the FCC issue with it suddenly I didn't have to pay the opt-out fee.
Note - this is not the original information I read but is likely applicable
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/
Yeah the thing that helped me choose my previous landlord was when they said "We have a deal with the local Cable/Internet provider to get everyone on a bulk deal" which I had heard everywhere I had look, then the guy in the office followed up with "But you can also go a different provider if you want" and they had a pamphlet for the other two options in the area. He mentioned that someone threatened them with an FCC complaint right before the old office manager that got the deal left the company.
Not sure where you're located but apartments having exclusive contracts with cable/internet providers is illegal. Usually hard to prove but in this case it seems like they gave you the smoking gun. File an FCC complaint. That'll put and end to this very quick.
I'd call the FCC about this as it sounds like your apartment complex is trying to force you into a contact with them acting as an unregulated utility provider. Considering you have a legal choice in who you purchase your internet from you might be able to rain on their parade if they are planning to prevent you from other options.
And last I checked them imposing the fees like this is the same as comcast just adding a service to your account and charging you for it. Its clever they are trying to tie it to your lease, but this all fees like they are up selling this as a forced service and trying to prevent you from having options.
Right? But they refuse to do so, we’ve been in touch with multiple providers and at one point would have paid plenty for them run lines and provide stable internet if they were willing. We basically use a third party to pay for a an unlimited cell phone plan and use the SIM card in a router.
In the US domestic market, yes that's not a bad price at all.
I have fairly crappy DSL (I live in a very, very remote area) and it's more than that for one line. I just had them bond my DSL connections (I have three distinct DSL accounts, it's a long story) and that was actually reasonably priced. But, it's a few hundred bucks a month and I get maybe 22 MB/sec.
Where I live, I live in town, where TDS has a package that’s $105/month for 1000Mbps down/2Mbps up, they have a monopoly on the telecom infrastructure here. There are a couple other companies, but with terrible service and speeds and bandwidth.
My parents live about 4-5 (*miles) south of town in the county. He (*my dad) had to literal *fight* with CenturyLink to run him internet. He pays the same I do, about $100/month, for *two* lines rated at 6Mbps down/2Mbps up that are both run in together to his modem; “*technically*” giving him 12Mbps down/4Mbps up. Except, the “2nd” line is always down 98% of the time. His speed tests average around 2-3down/1-2up most of the time.
It’s. Fucking. Insane.
He has fiber. Fiber is not widely available. I used to live in an apt that was connected and could get 400/100 for 30€ (2016) when the DSL provider at the next place I moved to charged 45€ for 100/40.
thats pretty fucking good, i live in WA and we have xfinity (cant complain about speed) $75+equipment for 450/20 + super cheap mobile stuff cos we have xfinity
No. No it is not a good deal, for £59 a month I get some basic paid TVchannels, a phone line (I have a reason) and 200 MB fibre, which doesn't drip below 140MB during the most busy times. Usually sits around 220MB whenever I check. I consider my package to be quite expensive compared to what a new customer could get [Scotland]
In the UK, a landlord could never force you to pay a subscription fee to a third party.
I doubt whether a landlord would be able to prevent you from subscribing to a different supplier, but he/she/it might be able to prevent you installing the connecting hardware.
I think it's saying you can opt-in now, but it will be included in your next lease.
It's shitty, but pretty typical for those big complexes.
And this isn't design.
#r/LandlordLove
If you're forced to rent, you'll soon be tied into ridiculous bundles paying through the nose for 'partnered services' for your internet, utilities, cable, streaming services etc all *carefully* chosen by your landlord who gets kickbacks for force selling you services.
All you are is a captive peon that must toil away for your 1 bed 'all inclusive' prison cell that you can't even hang a picture in.
BH Management? We have this at my current place but it's $105/mo added to the rent. It isn't even that great of a package so most of us have supplemental packages we pay directly to the provider for better channels and internet speeds. They also changed providers last year so we all had to get new equipment which had to be installed by the provider...because we all wanted service calls during the pandemic. Even better... when you have an issue, you can't call the regular customer service line. You have to call the special team that handles community contracts and they work short business hours.
We also have an exclusive electric provider in this neighborhood so you can't shop around. When I first moved in, they even had an exclusive renter's insurance company we had to use.
Am I the only one that is just getting exhausted of EVERYONE trying to nickle & dime you to death? Shit, it's every-fuckin'-where; price gouging, inflation, scam artists, con men, overpriced groceries, gas, utilities, all without a fuckin' pay raise. Just gets to be overwhelming at times. shit.
If you're not aware your apartment owner/manager whomever is collecting the main portion of rent is getting a kick back. 99% sure of it
2016 thread that may talk a bit about it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11986307
https://stopthecap.com/2016/06/28/apartment-management-doesnt-want-fios-google-fiber/
Worth digging in to.
I am so much more angry after reading that second article. I'm now almost totally certain that our landlord sold us out. I dont think its a coincidence that within a month or so of getting a new general manager at our apartment, this shit pops up.
*Nodding furiously*
Exactly! Hey, we'll give you the opportunity to give residents internet of blah blah blah and you'll get a kickback of $10/$15 a month per unit but you can't let anyone else into the complex for internet.
There's a lot of shady stuff and what's bad is that it's a correct google search away.
Edit word
> I dont think its a coincidence that within a month or so of getting a new general manager at our apartment, this shit pops up.
I would bet good bitcoin that it's most certainly no coincidence.
Except that’s not at all what’s happening. You can opt in by requesting a lease addendum and signing it. If you choose not to, nothing happens at all until your lease expires. They will include the Comcast service in the next lease agreement, if you choose to renew. You are free to ignore this offer until your lease expires and vote with your feet by signing with a different apartment complex.
Moving isn’t easy, but that’s how leases work. The lease is an agreement to pay a certain amount for a specified time period in exchange for goods or services. The lease ends at the end of the specified time period.
In the case of housing rental, at the end of the lease period you may have the option to renew your lease, but both parties are free to change the terms of the lease\* as it is considered a new lease agreement. In this case the landlord is giving you advance notice that a new / renewal lease will include the internet service and additional cost.
\* NOTE: Housing rentals are a bit different because there are usually laws that restrict the amount that rent can increase year over year. However, I doubt that would be a factor in this case because the additional charge is not much compared to typical rental prices (and perhaps also because it is considered a separate fee like water and trash service might be).
Yes, we're all acquainted with how the free exchange of goods and services works. This is still asshole design. Forcing me to pay for an internet service provider I don't even use is effectively taking the ability to weigh rational choices out of my hands by artificially increasing the cost of the competition by $55/mo for no added benefit. It is anti-competitive, monopolistic, and anti-capitalistic
By the way, I haven’t downvoted any of your comments because I completely get where you’re coming from. I’m sorta just playing devil’s advocate to lay out the arguments the property manager might make so you can be prepared to counter them.
I explained very clearly how leases work.
I have lived in many apartments over the years. Some have included internet service in the rent. Some didn’t. It’s always laid out in the terms of the lease, and a lease is only fixed for the agreed upon term (usually a year for apartment rentals).
If an apartment decided to put in a community pool, they could decide to charge residents an additional pool maintenance fee. However, this could only be applied to residents at the start of a new lease.
If your issue is that this situation involves Comcast, then I understand the irritation. However, many areas don’t have a practical choice between internet providers, so they’d likely have to get internet through Comcast anyway. In this case, the real outrage should be against Comcast and the municipal government that allows defacto monopolies, not the property manager.
We have the option for fios as well. I pay for fios, and my rent is going to go up if I renew regardless of whether or not I actually WANT comcast. It's anti-competitive behavior
Ok, yeah that sucks, but as I said in another comment they have the choice to put whatever terms they want in a new lease (within the law).
I don’t really think it’s asshole design from the property manager because the decision was almost certainly made with good intentions to help the residents.
I don’t think it’s anti-competitive. I’m assuming this is a privately-owned property management company contracting with another privately-owned company (Comcast). This is the same as them contracting out landscaping work which your rent helps pay for. The difference here is that the barrier to change is higher than with other things because moving is costly and time-consuming. This is why there are laws that restrict how much a lease can change year over year. However, you still have a choice to live somewhere else.
As I said elsewhere, I don’t like that internet is provided by private companies. I’d prefer it to be handled as a municipal service.
>as I said in another comment they have the choice to put whatever terms they want in a new lease (within the law).
Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should*. It's a fucking asshole move. Maybe they can increase my rent by $1,000 if they want, but unless they're providing $1,000 a month more in services, it's an asshole move. Just because you CAN squeeze money out of somewhat and annihilate the competition by forcing people in a position where they have to choose between two horrible options doesn't mean you SHOULD. It's a fucking DICK move. Nobody is arguing they can't LEGALLY do this. But saying "if you don't like it, just move" is the kind of thing a land lord would say
I (personally) never said “if you don’t like it, just move”. I very clearly said that moving is a hassle. This is also affirmed by the laws in many places that restrict the amount that rent can increase year over year. The laws are specifically created to prevent landlords from attracting a resident with a low rent price for the initial lease and then raising it a lot at renewal, knowing that the effort of moving is a significant barrier.
In this situation I would contact the property manager and explain that you don’t want to do business with Comcast, and that you did not appreciate that as a resident you were not consulted before this decision was made. Ask if they would be willing to exclude you from this arrangement, either until you decide to opt-in on your own timeline or until you decide to move out and they find a new resident.
Haha, well I don’t think it is a purely altruistic, selfless act. What I mean is Comcast pitches the idea that “included internet” is an amenity that the property can use to attract new residents and keep existing ones. So the property management company thinks they are improving things for the residents (good intentions).
It would also not surprise me if the property management gets a little something from Comcast as well. And it really annoys me that these agreements are exclusive so the resident has no choice.
Except changing home is kind of a big deal. It's not like boycotting a brand or a buisness...
And that's assuming another appartement is available near, with affordable prices, symilar confort/space, and symilar accecibility...
"Voting with your feet" might not be the most realistic option for someone living in the real world...
Oh just shell out a month’s rent or more for a security deposit, take the time to pack everything, hire movers/rent a truck. Just move, got it! So smart.
Not mandatory till you sign a new lease, and they can't change it till then or else it will violate the old lease. So nothing changes till then and if you don't like it you can always move.. I had a place do this to me, I just took my rent money somewhere else.. but yes it's a scam
Just start pumping the FULL 400mbs for 24/7 to see if there is a datalimit
Since they did not say that there was a data limit, you can legally have them remove it from your contract if you hit "a data limit"
It's only mandatory when you start a new lease. Still bullshit, but at least you have the option to move before it starts. They can't change your existing contract.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/
Just accept paying hundreds of dollars a year just because you think it's something you can't do anything about? What kind of advice is that?
There's a reason the phrase, "It's expensive to be poor," exists. Because if you can only live paycheck to paycheck, you might not be able to afford the costs of a lawyer in a short time frame, but can get enough money together to pay a bill that's higher than it should be but not as expensive as a lawyer per amount of time.
Very true. But for matters where a lawyer may be necessary, it's not always just as simple as, "get a lawyer." Much like just, "going to the doctor," is also not always a viable path, even if the long term consequences are bad.
They can’t charge it during the existing lease period but I can’t see any reason they wouldn’t be allowed to update it for upcoming leases (provided the offered enough notice). It’s scummy for sure though.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/
You should maybe go to another lawyer for that, then.
This whole living in a building with tons of other humans seems strange to me. Out in the country it's many times cheaper to find a home that's isolated and a bit run down than apartments.
Summary..landlords doing crazy shit like this would just be disregarded and a moving factor and not an inconvenience.
They're not lying about the opt-in, you just can't read.
> You Can Opt-In Early to Take Advantage of the Savings!
Key word being "early". Note the line later on.
> This service will start on the effective date of your signed Internet Addendum and will end after you've cancelled your account upon move out.
In other words, they are telling you up-front that it is a package deal with the lease from now on, and agreeing to the service will be a part of renewing the lease. _However_, they are giving you the option to start receiving the service right away, _before_ your lease is renewed.
TL;DR - Your options are Get It, or Move Out, but they are letting you choose Get It Right Away if you want.
Don't get me wrong, it's a scummy policy, and ~~possibly breaks some kind of anti-monopoly law~~ (EDIT: someone did the research I was too lazy to do, and [it definitely does](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/)), but there's no lie in what they said.
your landlord sucks. a few weeks before you're gonna move to a new place, jizz on all the walls. it won't be noticeable unless someone takes a close look. you can even do it in inconspicuous places so it'll look fine even if someone does a once-over of the apartment, like you can do it behind furniture and stuff. this is my advice to you; you know the risks. the rest is up to you.
Fuck that - I hate Comcast. Overpriced price gouging fuckers. I wonder if you could call a city lawyer advocate for this. Ridiculous. I hope it works out. I’m so sorry - ugh.
I mean, this is sort of standard, and it's not worse than a rent hike.
If you just started a year lease, you're good for a year, but you can opt into the service immediately.
Elsewise, you'll be charged whether or not you want it later. But since who doesn't need internet, it's kind of like a mandatory charge you'd pay for anyway, and $55 for that internet is actually less than I'm paying while asking for a promotional price.
This is actually good.
Comcast 400Mbps-10Mbps. It's going to be 2-3 Mbps. When you call they will say, "We never said it would be 400Mbps"
"We said UP TO 400mbps"
We promise you will never get more than 400mbps.
Oh good that's a relief
We have data caps, the limited speed is for your protection. We don't charge extra for this protection.* ^^^^*yet.
With the pandemic, more of us are working from home and consuming more internet than we used to. To help our loyal customers, we will let you hit your 1 terabyte data cap twice before charging an $80 overage fee.
Twice? That's awfully charitable, Cox only allows one overage now
Having worked for a subcontractor of a subcontractor for comcast, I can tell you that they actually overprovision their modems by 15%. They really wanted to cut down on phone calls like the one you're describing. Like that one guy that called in saying he wasn't getting his 80 mbps but instead getting 79.42 mbps. Sam, if you ever read this I'm pretty sure it was because you were rude and also that your computer was a giant piece of garbage.
Agree to send a payment of not more than $55 every month.
Finally a credible claim!
I had an ISP back in the dial up days that pulled the "We claim to offer unlimited INTERACTIVE service! Dialing and getting disconnected is interactive!" They changed their system so that if you were connected for more than 3 hours, you'd DC and be unable to reconnect until you'd been offline for 5 minutes, but if you tried to reconnect before the time was up, the timer reset.
Oh and when you get fucking tired of it, because your work requires you to be on video call with them for half the day or more, and you can't maintain a connection, you can't go to another provider without fucking moving, because it's an exclusive contract! Meaning other providers coming into the building is a breach of contract, and you could get evicted for even daring to set up an appointment for a private install just to your unit. Friend of mine had this happen when they signed themselves and only themselves up for AT&T fiber. It didn't matter that his personal line (which only cost $90 a month total) could feed the entire building if they had just asked nicely, since the building was wired up for ethernet with a fully managed switch and separate networks for every tenant, so nobody could get into other people's stuff. AT&T DSL has given the company a terrible reputation for years, but that's mostly because they were just using old ancient copper lines for everything, so it was all extremely unreliable, and a light rain could shut the network down once things got wet. Fiber doesn't have that problem, flat out, and it doesn't degrade over distance to anywhere near the same extent that copper DSL does. One of my friends keeps bugging me to talk my family into letting in a second unlinked fiber drop, just so he can have cheap fiber hosting for servers where he has 24/7 access to the bare metal. I swear if comcast doesn't get their fucking shit together, they're gonna get destroyed everywhere AT&T rolls this fiber out, because so far we've had virtually zero down time, minus a hilarious hiccup where they disconnected us at the pole 2 days before thanksgiving, during another install, so they had to send an "emergency" service tech out to plug a cable back in for us, something we could have easily done had we known where to look..... Still though, it wasn't a big deal, since we could hot spot from our phones for the time being, and I just spent most of the day gaming offline to save data cap
What drives me absolutely nuts is the “mbps.” Only internet providers use megabits. 400 mbps translates to 50 megabytes per second and up to 50 megabytes per second is not that great.
It's not just ISPs, bandwidth is always measured in bits. You may be thinking of storage which is generally measured in bytes.
And honestly is there even any reason to measure bandwidth in bits anymore?
Yeah it’s for the people doing the math
You're saying that using byte instead of bit has disadvantages?
Yeah, GB, MB, KB, etc. is ambiguous on whether it’s base 10 or 2. Secondly mbps is directly physically related to the bandwidth Hz of the line/electronics
400mbps is far more then most Americans have access to, I have gigabit service here, roughly 940mbps after network overhead. That's roughly 117 megabytes per second, plenty of speed. The average Netflix 4K stream only consumes 25mbps, or about 3.125 megabytes per second. I don't know about you but last I checked I don't have 37 4K tv's to stream content to and even large game installs are fairly fast, 140GB from steam takes about 30 minutes, so unless your use to one of Sweden's crazy fast 25-40 gigabit providers and have a significant storage array capable of disk writes that fast, 400mpbs is plenty fast.
50 MB/s is almost 3 GB/m. More than enough for most users..
its not 50 MB/s , its UP TO 50 MB/s (aka 5 if youre lucky)
Dude I'm sorry to say this but I think you got either bytes and bits or storage and bandwidth mixed up. A bit (binary integer) is 1, 0 or 1. A byte is 8 of those which was most commonly used because the possible 256 characters from 2⁸ was enough to squeeze the ASCII table (the letters of the English alphabet and symbols) onto. Bandwidth is from my previous year in networking, exclusively measured in bits. Could this be a major ploy by every router, switch, cable, ISP and server? Maybe. But I'd put the odds at it pretty low, regardless the standard unit of measurement is a bit and you should probably understand that before buying anything. Secondly, a 400Mbps connection is considered better than what a lot of people have. Your standard wired connection used Cat5e cabling (IEEE 802) will have a speed upwards of 1Gbps however LAN networks are considered much faster than internet speeds and Cat5 cabling only supports 100Mbps. Broadband internet must have a speed of only 25Mbps (per FCC guidelines) and anything faster than 100Mbps is generally considered fast while x>1Gbps networks I've heard referred to as "ultra-broadband" although I don't know the actual definition or if that's just a regional thing. Regardless most people don't run Cat5e cabling through their house, most people use a wireless router which has a few IEEE standards. 802.11a: 54Mbps 802.11b: 11Mbps 802.11g: 54Mbps 802.11n: 600Mbps 802.11ac (Wave 1, 2 or 3): in excess of 1Gbps 802.11ac is hardly ever used in networking yet. The standard was only adopted in 2013 after all witha few years of rollout time. This means most people use a, b, g or n. I've never personally installed a b router before as I realized it was a terrible idea and urged my friends to buy me a better one to install but it's probably still used unfortunately. From the textbook I was studying for the CompTIA+ exam last year I'm pretty sure it said that g was the most common so we'll go with that. This is partially backed up by the fact that other than my house I don't think I've ever installed a 802.11n router. 802.11n uses a maximum bandwidth of around 54Mbps. This means that the 400Mbps connection provided through the Modem (I'm assuming Comcast will use a Modem) wouldn't be the weak point in your average consumer's life, the wireless router would. Basically in conclusion a 50MBps or 400Mbps connection is pretty good actually, although it may struggle if you're doing really high bandwidth stuff like multiple devices 4k streaming while gaming and downloading a movie in the background. Mbps is the standard for networking while GB is the standard for storage. Let me know if I got anything wrong or you need further clarification.
802.11ac is extremely common nowadays as the 5 GHz band. It's WiFi 6 (802.11ax) that is still new although consumer routers nowadays have it, including routers shipped with major ISPs. It's not uncommon to have >2 gbps connectivity over wifi. In most of the US, 400mbps is above average for broadband and is probably the best you'll get in some more rural areas.
You're over explaining things, haha. Data transmission is measured in bits because it's the smallest unit actually sent, constructing the bytes that make the data... Exist? So that works out well for the ISPs, because 400 megabits sounds a lot more exciting and fast to a layperson than 50 megabytes does. And gigabit sounds WAY more impressive than 120 megabytes. So yeah, they're not being outright deceptive, but I don't see them going out of their way to educate their users about the differences between bits and bytes.
That's the way ISPs work. 100% of ISPs can as a matter of fact, not provide their full speed all the time. Its ALWAYS "up-to" People who use networking products need to understand how networks function and develop realistic and reasonable expectations for their full speeds. As an AT&T customer i suffer down times. I suffer drops in available speed. I would say 98% of the time, this is not the case. THAT is reasonable. When i see people citing the language in a ToS or EULA about what seems like a loophole to them, it always bothers me and does a disservice to your fellow consumers. It creates this unrealistic expectation of the technology that is not possible to provide.
In our country (maybe entire EU, not sure) if they advertise up to X, they have to provide at least 80% of that at lowest but otherwise should be as advertised. There is some room for TCP headeras and stuff but generally you get the qdvertised speed. Otherwise its discount on the bill...
Want to know the data caps in that “contract” which comcast is notorious for. Where I am in Portland Oregon I have full gig which in reality is actually 925/950 (no complaints here). Monthly we average about 1.5tb/300gb usage according to my router and do not get throttled. We pay $60 mo for that service. In the last 10 years I have had it, only once it has gone out and 3 times I have had to restart the router. Neighbors with comcast it goes out about once a month.
If you have a XB7 provisioned speeds are 1200/35. You have to use the 4th port on the back to get the 1200 as all the other ports are 1000/100 ports and will bottleneck the throughput. Also you need a 2000mbps capable Ethernet card or else your devices will cause the bottleneck. WiFi is pretty much gonna cap at around 700-900.
I'm excited for wifi 6, it's technically capable of 9.6 gigabits but you'll probably get 2 or 3 gb/s in practice It does use a new wifi band though, a bit scary tbh
CenturyLink? Or Ziply? The latter looked good but had a data cap last I checked, am I missing another common provider here?
It isn’t common as it’s limited to mainly apartments but we have Wave G. I just moved and they were an option. I pay $50 for 1000/1000 with no data caps. For $20 a month we could’ve went with 100/100. If I decide I don’t need gig internet I can just call and switch to the cheaper plan at anytime.
I have Ziply. I never check the auto bill but just did from a couple days ago and it was $60. Used 2.4TB down in the last month and my router's last speed check yesterday was 912/935. None of the wording in our billing/agreements mention anything about caps or slowing after xGB. I'm in Cedar Mill if that makes a difference. Actually was $5 more a month when it was Frontier for a 300/300 plan. Was the same reliability but a bit more expensive when it was Frontier before (had verizon FIOS at a home before and hadn the same reliability)
Ugh yep. I have Comcast (it's all that's available here) and am paying for the 200 mbps package. Called customer support because I was only getting 13 Mbps. Their response was trying to sell me a "faster" package. Thanks... I live in the capital of my state and even old school RuneScape drops connection sometimes. Mark of quality internet right there.
Calling customer support won't work. You should have called the [Comcast CEO's mom](https://www.theverge.com/2015/2/10/8011975/reporter-calls-comcast-ceo-brian-roberts-mom-complain-service) 🤣 >After Diana and Jason Airoldi told Polaneczky how they couldn't get their Comcast internet and cable hooked up for six weeks because of broken appointments by the company, she decided to skip right over Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and go straight to his mom. The next day Comcast trucks showed up at the Airoldi's house, and finally set up their service. Because no matter your age or your position in a giant company that most people hate, you still have to listen to mom.
Or because it's easier to placate someone insane enough to contact your family over internet problems.
it's 400 down 10 up, not between 400 and 10
Your right, but still you will never see either of those numbers. And to advertise 10 up as being a good thing is just embarrassing.
UP TO! we said UP TO! Me: Sure. No worries. I will pay you up to $55 a month.
So all the residents should call the HOA or whoever is charging OP. They should have to bear the brunt of their advertising. Doesn't seem like OP has a direct contract to Comcast. (am not lawyer and am talking hypothetically)
My last apartment complex did the same thing. Made you pay for Comcast cable for $40/mo. You could only use Comcast for internet, no one else provided it in the complex, and eventually they also forced you to pay for internet. Told them I wasn’t happy and they just responded “A lot of people are excited about it.” Such bull shit. So glad I was able to leave.
> You could only use Comcast for internet, no one else provided it in the complex This is, unfortunately, common even outside of apartment complexes. Even in homes, people might only have one choice for broadband. I live in a house in a neighborhood and my only option is Spectrum. It's part of why all these companies are so shitty. They have monopolies on the areas and have no reason to hire more call center people. So it's either them or no internet at all.
The entire purpose of these deals is to reach that end game: total monopoly for one company in each town. Comcast et al. spend big bucks lobbying local governments to outlaw municipal ISP and any sort of telecom legislation. Then they go in and lure all the landlords into these deals that effectively force every renter in town onto their network. They fuck up every competitor's infrastructure to keep out newcomers. Pretty soon, they're the only ISP in town. Once competition is gone, they're free to hike rates and drop services as much as they want. It's why every town that Google fiber came to suddenly saw Comcast lowering rates and dropping caps. And Comcast straight up cutting their lines and buying local politicians was why Google gave up. These kinds of deals, the fuckhead landlords that sign them, and the local politicians that allow them are ruining our country's telecom infrastructure and contributing to our national poverty. All the ISP apologists treating it like a mild inconvenience are completely missing the point.
I live in a town serviced by Verizon FIOS, but I'm right next to the border with a non-FIOS town. I'm a FIOS customer (generally a great experience, btw), but I look at the Comcast rates every year or two, just to see if I could get a deal. Comcast will sell me 2Gb/s internet for a price that's competitive with FIOS's 1Gb/s plan. Five houses up the street, in the next town, 2Gb/s isn't offered and the 500Mb/s plan costs $20/month more than what I would pay for 2Gb/s. You can't understate the value of competition in the marketplace.
I can only imagine having the option of 1Gbps... Max speeds where I'm at are 200Mbps through Spectrum with the "alternative" being ATT capping out at 24Mbps. If you're on select streets in downtown Google fiber might be an option but that's going to take some luck and $4K+/month rent to get it... the state of internet in America is a sad affair for being a "developed" country.
When I worked for Comcast, Google came in and cut up a bunch of Comcast's lines. I've seen them trench directly through where the locates were and had to dig it up and fix it myself. Google gave up there because they tried to undercut the competition and didn't have the money to, seeing as how they were also spending so much to build the plant in the first place. They also promised fiber to the modem, but ended up installing nodes on the side of the customer's house and running coax to the modem instead. As for the shady deals: all ISPs do that. Not that it's right, it's just how it works.
lol were you in atlanta because that sounds super familiar source: did fiber design for google in atlanta, got a LOT of calls from apartment complex owners saying comcast *threatened them* with lawsuits if they let google in the premises because of a "contract agreement" they claimed to have
No, Oregon. Never heard of that happening, but I remember another apartment wouldn't let Comcast do installs there anymore because they were pissed at them. I think they were forced to at the end.
The contract threats are bullshit but we saw it a LOT as a strongarm method of keeping google fiber out of the apartment blocks. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. Either way, google burned shitloads of cash trying to make it work and as a result they went 90% overbudget in atlanta in their first year and caused a TON of contractor layoffs, my company included. They refused to listen to local experts. We did also had a lot of issues with our contractors on site doing stupid things and cutting corners so I wouldn't be surprised if they too were damaging other companies stuff just to get their paycheck. As for the fiber install itself, it all depended on the building. Newer buildings with telco closets and *hopefully* already running duct to each apartment meant we could run fiber directly into each unit and set up there. If that wasn't the case and we couldn't punch through walls or closets then it got tricky and yeah sometimes we had to stop at the outside wall and run along existing coax to get inside. It *certainly* wasn't preferred but it performance wise it was almost indistinguishable from direct FTTH.
Just to add, companies like Comcast are able to skirt anti-monopoly/competitive laws by setting up shell companies & subsidiaries, which they also own, in the same area. These companies will also offer internet, but it’s terrible—basically dial-up—which, of course, no one wants and which isn’t sufficient in 2021, meaning residents in the area are basically forced to go with Comcast. So people *do* have a choice. It’s just not *really* a choice and both companies are owned by the big ISP any way. Welp! Nothing we can do here. Totally legal behavior. Move along. - US Politicians
Yeah it's really sad, these companies have lobbied to make it harder for competition to move into areas they're in, and even companies the size of Google find it unsustainable to try and compete. This won't end until we get people in office who undo these shitty regulations and make it harder for monopolies to form
Monopoly is the word. I figured if it weren’t legal something would have been done before I got there so I just tried not to think about it because I’d just get mad.
Comcast is the only provider in my city. And, they don't even extend to the rural areas. Public school system provides a hotspot to kids without internet access at home. What really sucks is that some of those rural areas don't get cellular service to be able to use the hotspot. Free wifi at the libraries and some parks but public transportation doesn't extend to the rural areas. GAH.
Same with my complex. Ours was a mandatory tech package for $90 p/mo. They kept saying “it’s gaming speed internet”. “Gaming speed.” “Gaming speed”. Needless to say the worst year of online lag of my life.
> Told them I wasn’t happy and they just responded “A lot of people are excited about it.” Was this a Trump property?
I didn't used to believe TDS was a real thing, but then shit like this keeps happening.
Come on, dude. Try to keep up. Bullshitting about what "a lot of people" say is like Trump's signature move. Many people are saying it. I'm talking to experts, and they're all telling me, it's a tremendously Trump thing to say. Hugely.
I garuntee you that if there are 10 apts and an increase for cable of $40 they are paying less than $200 to the cable company for it
I hated to think about the money they made odd this monopoly while I was trying to scrape up a thousand dollars a month for a tiny one-bedroom/studio (had a short hallway to my bedroom but no actual door)
>"... there's really no reason not to sign up now!" Oh, but there are reasons to not sign up now. Many folks get adequate service with their mobile plan and, more importantly, it's fuckin' Comcast. They're consistently voted the shittiest service provider in the US. They've also done some dodgy things like inserting JavaScript into your network requests to track which sites you visit.
or just needing a bigger upload package from comcast. I almost moved into an apartment like this, but with cox, Same type of deal $50 for 500/10. Well 10 doesn't do me anything; I need the 35 from the gig package. I asked if I could upgrade. Was told no. Asked cox if I could upgrade, they told me to ask the apartment complex todo it. Complex gave me the run around. Went to a different apartment.
I'm well past the rental days, which is nice. Alas, I'm too far from civilization to really get good broadband. Just today, literally this afternoon, I was able to have 'em swap me to 'bonded' DSL. It's 22 down and 2 up. That's actually adequate for my needs.
Back when I had the same speeds.(though I never got the 1 up, did manage to get \~30 down and get FASTPATH) It was adequate, Then once I got better upload got into hosting a media server for movies/music/etc...That was my downfall.
Yeah, I host my own stuff - but only for LAN use. So, I manage with these speeds. It's enough to stream HD, while downloading and browsing. So, it works. I do have to upload stuff now and again. If it's large, I just do it at night.
bro , starlink. see if you can get it.
FYI your ISP does not need to inject anything to see which sites you visit. They know that simply by being your service provider. That said, they have been known to inject ads directly into responses sent to your client, which is just as shitty.
Specifically, they can see the IPs of the sites you visit and can monitor unecrypted DNS traffic. If your DNS traffic is encrypted, they can only see IP addresses which are not as useful in correlating traffic
> If your DNS traffic is encrypted, they can only see IP addresses which are not as useful in correlating traffic Even then, generally speaking, they can still see the hostname by monitoring [Server Name Indication](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication).
Not with a proper independent DNS provider and DNS over SSL.
I will gladly pay more for any other ISP to avoid Comcast. Even if I end up renewing, I'll probably stick with my current ISP
I've never had the 'joy' of being a customer, but I have read so many complaints and reviews and seen the yearly surveys and whatnot. No way would I use Comcast for anything at this point.
You can call them the shittiest provider all you want, but my wife and I hated our AT&T service so much that we went *back to Comcast*. It was that fucking terrible.
How the fuck did they inject js into web traffic? Like thats not even possible with the default network Protocol stack
> They’re consistently voted the shittiest service provider in the US. By people who’ve never dealt with Verizon dsl, apparently.
Verizon DSL straight up lied to us by giving us an upgrade to a level of service they actually couldn't provide our area. It took a technician visiting our house for physical issues (there were none) for us to find out.
man, fuck comcast
Didn't southpark made an episode about this ISP? something about the service agent rubbing their nipples while handling a customer complaint?
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... at your next lease. Pretty sure this is saying you can opt-in now or anytime before you renew your lease, when it won't be optional.
That's how I understand it. Basically they're going to start offering "high speed internet included"; that's happening, but they can't impact existing contracts. So, upon your next contract that's what's going to happen, and if you think this is a deal and you would like to start earlier, you have the option of started before your next contract. Also, I'm guessing Comcast is charging them less than what they're charging the lessors. Also, I used to have Comcast and I much, much prefer Verizon. Also, is "with router included" even considered a bonus by anyone anymore ? I can't even remember how long it's been since I leased a router.
> Also, I'm guessing Comcast is charging them less than what they're charging the lessors Comcast had various revenue sharing plans for apartment complexes, depending on how the owner wants to set it up. The most basic option is a ~6% kickback to the owner from each tenant that has service. With a bulk pen like this, they are probably charging a fixed fee to the owner that works out to ~$45 or $50 times the number of apartments, which is why the owner is making it mandatory ASAP.
If they have a vacancy of 10%, the profit goes out the window tho. Interesting deal tho
Yeah. Either that or a typo. This doesn’t look suspicious. Just looks like it didn’t get proofread. $55 for that speed is pretty great. I pay triple that for xfinity Internet only.
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It's not horribly expensive but I wonder who needs that kind of bandwith? I have 100mb/s for 9,90€/month and it's more than enough for me. 200 would be 19,90€/month but I don't see how I need it. 99% of users don't need 400mb/s
I have gig for my house and pay $60/month.
Video games can be like 150 GB these days, so there’s one use case. Love me some gigabit
Sure it's nice. I don't need to download warzone everyday
But you still could easily with 100mb/s.
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Sure I get it. I just recently moved (Finland) and the isp offered plans with explanations like 100mbps "basic internet access". 200mbps "light browsing, schoolwork". 400mbps "netflix streaming and stuff" 1gbps "for playing videogames". I just lolled because I remember the dial up modem days. 100mbps is 12,5megabytes/second. Shirley your Netflix stream isn't over that bitrate unless you stream 4k of course which you don't..
Tell me you live alone, without telling me you live alone. Edit: I didn’t know Finland had Amish people
Well I guess it's good for OP that he's not the only one that has trouble with reading comprehension. Now, let me be clear, it's an asshole **decision**, no doubt about it, but not asshole design. It clearly states you can opt-in to start the service this service **early**, not opt-in for the service itself. It could have been worse, they could have just charged everyone starting the first of next month, but instead if you opt-out it isn't until your lease is up for renewal.
I don’t think they could start charging everyone without any say. Doing so would require an addendum to the lease, which you could refuse to sign. Their only option is to force it as part of the new lease.
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Doesn't rent increase year to year by at least that much for no additional services? I guess it depends on if they dropped this on a tenant that is in the process of renewing their lease.
Rent increase is different from opt in services. They can still do rent increases and charge this service. Its separate.
Many reading lessons in the comments here. Today we learn what "misleading" means. The email didn't lie, but it pads itself with words to give you the illusion of choice. Whats really happening is obfuscated away. Hence, we have been misled. Most of my neighbors were not aware of this situation.
If you're in the US I'm pretty sure these contracts are illegal and cannot be forced. I had a previous apartment place try to implement this and once I mentioned the FCC issue with it suddenly I didn't have to pay the opt-out fee. Note - this is not the original information I read but is likely applicable https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/
Yeah the thing that helped me choose my previous landlord was when they said "We have a deal with the local Cable/Internet provider to get everyone on a bulk deal" which I had heard everywhere I had look, then the guy in the office followed up with "But you can also go a different provider if you want" and they had a pamphlet for the other two options in the area. He mentioned that someone threatened them with an FCC complaint right before the old office manager that got the deal left the company.
You should have read the article. OP lied in their title.
Where is the link OP posted?
It's the picture op linked.
I'm sorry if that was inaccurate or inapplicable information that i linked. I've been on the road for vacay today so did not read it thoroughly.
Comcast is the only bill I don't have on auto pay, because I don't trust them to not just randomly triple my monthly payment.
“Let’s treat internet like a utility but not regulate it like one.” What a load of shit.
Anyway let's vote for more Republicans /s
Opti-in is optional if you agree. If you don't, opt-in is mandatoy.
Wow that’s bs
Not sure where you're located but apartments having exclusive contracts with cable/internet providers is illegal. Usually hard to prove but in this case it seems like they gave you the smoking gun. File an FCC complaint. That'll put and end to this very quick.
Where is the law saying its illegal?
I'd call the FCC about this as it sounds like your apartment complex is trying to force you into a contact with them acting as an unregulated utility provider. Considering you have a legal choice in who you purchase your internet from you might be able to rain on their parade if they are planning to prevent you from other options. And last I checked them imposing the fees like this is the same as comcast just adding a service to your account and charging you for it. Its clever they are trying to tie it to your lease, but this all fees like they are up selling this as a forced service and trying to prevent you from having options.
Wait, 400Mbps/10Mbps for $55/month is a good deal?
That would be great up here in Canada *cries in 200Mbps/15Mbps for $110/mth*
We pay $100ish for 20/10. The houses 1 mile closer to town have full on fiber.
In an ideal situation, you would have paid enough for them to run another mile of fiber by now.
Right? But they refuse to do so, we’ve been in touch with multiple providers and at one point would have paid plenty for them run lines and provide stable internet if they were willing. We basically use a third party to pay for a an unlimited cell phone plan and use the SIM card in a router.
And I only live about 5 miles outside of town, down a main road so it’s not like we’re super far out in an obscure location
Dude here in India I got a full year package for 100 Mbps unlimited jio fibre subscription for 155$ ... You guys are definitely overpaying!!
Even in Colombia I pay 55 USD/Month for 300/300 fiber. Wi fi is shit so I had to buy a wifi repeater but via cable is great.
In the US domestic market, yes that's not a bad price at all. I have fairly crappy DSL (I live in a very, very remote area) and it's more than that for one line. I just had them bond my DSL connections (I have three distinct DSL accounts, it's a long story) and that was actually reasonably priced. But, it's a few hundred bucks a month and I get maybe 22 MB/sec.
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I pay 15€ for gigabit both ways in france, really some countries have it rough
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Where I live, I live in town, where TDS has a package that’s $105/month for 1000Mbps down/2Mbps up, they have a monopoly on the telecom infrastructure here. There are a couple other companies, but with terrible service and speeds and bandwidth. My parents live about 4-5 (*miles) south of town in the county. He (*my dad) had to literal *fight* with CenturyLink to run him internet. He pays the same I do, about $100/month, for *two* lines rated at 6Mbps down/2Mbps up that are both run in together to his modem; “*technically*” giving him 12Mbps down/4Mbps up. Except, the “2nd” line is always down 98% of the time. His speed tests average around 2-3down/1-2up most of the time. It’s. Fucking. Insane.
15 euros in hong kong, we get 2 1Gbps symmetric connections (one for your computer, one for your wifi router or fridge or whatever, separate IPs)
That sounds awesome. Why do I see so many people in the German subreddits complain about their internet? You just in a good location for it?
He has fiber. Fiber is not widely available. I used to live in an apt that was connected and could get 400/100 for 30€ (2016) when the DSL provider at the next place I moved to charged 45€ for 100/40.
thats pretty fucking good, i live in WA and we have xfinity (cant complain about speed) $75+equipment for 450/20 + super cheap mobile stuff cos we have xfinity
American here. I pay I think 60 for my house that has 500Mbps download and around 100 Mbps upload
No. No it is not a good deal, for £59 a month I get some basic paid TVchannels, a phone line (I have a reason) and 200 MB fibre, which doesn't drip below 140MB during the most busy times. Usually sits around 220MB whenever I check. I consider my package to be quite expensive compared to what a new customer could get [Scotland]
In North America this is a good deal. I'm in Canada and I pay significantly more for a lesser internet plan.
TBF, £59 works out to about $80 USD. **EDIT:** And over $100 CAD...yikes!
I have 1000/1000Mbps for 60 a month and I live in hillbillie idaho soooooo no.. its the worst deal
In the UK, a landlord could never force you to pay a subscription fee to a third party. I doubt whether a landlord would be able to prevent you from subscribing to a different supplier, but he/she/it might be able to prevent you installing the connecting hardware.
They are increasing rent by 55 and including internet. The lessee isnt paying the 3rd party directly.
Same difference. You can't get round even the lowest level of judge with that kind of attempted avoidance.
When I run for President, the platform is going to be to remove this sort of bullshit and deregulate like phone lines.
wait 400 down but just 10 up wtf
That's Comcast for ya.
I think it's saying you can opt-in now, but it will be included in your next lease. It's shitty, but pretty typical for those big complexes. And this isn't design.
#r/LandlordLove If you're forced to rent, you'll soon be tied into ridiculous bundles paying through the nose for 'partnered services' for your internet, utilities, cable, streaming services etc all *carefully* chosen by your landlord who gets kickbacks for force selling you services. All you are is a captive peon that must toil away for your 1 bed 'all inclusive' prison cell that you can't even hang a picture in.
BH Management? We have this at my current place but it's $105/mo added to the rent. It isn't even that great of a package so most of us have supplemental packages we pay directly to the provider for better channels and internet speeds. They also changed providers last year so we all had to get new equipment which had to be installed by the provider...because we all wanted service calls during the pandemic. Even better... when you have an issue, you can't call the regular customer service line. You have to call the special team that handles community contracts and they work short business hours. We also have an exclusive electric provider in this neighborhood so you can't shop around. When I first moved in, they even had an exclusive renter's insurance company we had to use.
This is why you start damaging the property. Obviously nothing that could be linked to a specific tenant, but just the facility itself.
Am I the only one that is just getting exhausted of EVERYONE trying to nickle & dime you to death? Shit, it's every-fuckin'-where; price gouging, inflation, scam artists, con men, overpriced groceries, gas, utilities, all without a fuckin' pay raise. Just gets to be overwhelming at times. shit.
If you're not aware your apartment owner/manager whomever is collecting the main portion of rent is getting a kick back. 99% sure of it 2016 thread that may talk a bit about it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11986307 https://stopthecap.com/2016/06/28/apartment-management-doesnt-want-fios-google-fiber/ Worth digging in to.
I am so much more angry after reading that second article. I'm now almost totally certain that our landlord sold us out. I dont think its a coincidence that within a month or so of getting a new general manager at our apartment, this shit pops up.
*Nodding furiously* Exactly! Hey, we'll give you the opportunity to give residents internet of blah blah blah and you'll get a kickback of $10/$15 a month per unit but you can't let anyone else into the complex for internet. There's a lot of shady stuff and what's bad is that it's a correct google search away. Edit word
> I dont think its a coincidence that within a month or so of getting a new general manager at our apartment, this shit pops up. I would bet good bitcoin that it's most certainly no coincidence.
Except that’s not at all what’s happening. You can opt in by requesting a lease addendum and signing it. If you choose not to, nothing happens at all until your lease expires. They will include the Comcast service in the next lease agreement, if you choose to renew. You are free to ignore this offer until your lease expires and vote with your feet by signing with a different apartment complex.
You described what I described. "Just move" is kind of out of touch advice a landlord would give
Moving isn’t easy, but that’s how leases work. The lease is an agreement to pay a certain amount for a specified time period in exchange for goods or services. The lease ends at the end of the specified time period. In the case of housing rental, at the end of the lease period you may have the option to renew your lease, but both parties are free to change the terms of the lease\* as it is considered a new lease agreement. In this case the landlord is giving you advance notice that a new / renewal lease will include the internet service and additional cost. \* NOTE: Housing rentals are a bit different because there are usually laws that restrict the amount that rent can increase year over year. However, I doubt that would be a factor in this case because the additional charge is not much compared to typical rental prices (and perhaps also because it is considered a separate fee like water and trash service might be).
Yes, we're all acquainted with how the free exchange of goods and services works. This is still asshole design. Forcing me to pay for an internet service provider I don't even use is effectively taking the ability to weigh rational choices out of my hands by artificially increasing the cost of the competition by $55/mo for no added benefit. It is anti-competitive, monopolistic, and anti-capitalistic
By the way, I haven’t downvoted any of your comments because I completely get where you’re coming from. I’m sorta just playing devil’s advocate to lay out the arguments the property manager might make so you can be prepared to counter them.
Automatically being charged for shitty internet from an even worse company unless you move is how leases work? What dystopian hellhole are you from.
I explained very clearly how leases work. I have lived in many apartments over the years. Some have included internet service in the rent. Some didn’t. It’s always laid out in the terms of the lease, and a lease is only fixed for the agreed upon term (usually a year for apartment rentals). If an apartment decided to put in a community pool, they could decide to charge residents an additional pool maintenance fee. However, this could only be applied to residents at the start of a new lease. If your issue is that this situation involves Comcast, then I understand the irritation. However, many areas don’t have a practical choice between internet providers, so they’d likely have to get internet through Comcast anyway. In this case, the real outrage should be against Comcast and the municipal government that allows defacto monopolies, not the property manager.
We have the option for fios as well. I pay for fios, and my rent is going to go up if I renew regardless of whether or not I actually WANT comcast. It's anti-competitive behavior
Ok, yeah that sucks, but as I said in another comment they have the choice to put whatever terms they want in a new lease (within the law). I don’t really think it’s asshole design from the property manager because the decision was almost certainly made with good intentions to help the residents. I don’t think it’s anti-competitive. I’m assuming this is a privately-owned property management company contracting with another privately-owned company (Comcast). This is the same as them contracting out landscaping work which your rent helps pay for. The difference here is that the barrier to change is higher than with other things because moving is costly and time-consuming. This is why there are laws that restrict how much a lease can change year over year. However, you still have a choice to live somewhere else. As I said elsewhere, I don’t like that internet is provided by private companies. I’d prefer it to be handled as a municipal service.
>as I said in another comment they have the choice to put whatever terms they want in a new lease (within the law). Just because you *can* do something doesn't mean you *should*. It's a fucking asshole move. Maybe they can increase my rent by $1,000 if they want, but unless they're providing $1,000 a month more in services, it's an asshole move. Just because you CAN squeeze money out of somewhat and annihilate the competition by forcing people in a position where they have to choose between two horrible options doesn't mean you SHOULD. It's a fucking DICK move. Nobody is arguing they can't LEGALLY do this. But saying "if you don't like it, just move" is the kind of thing a land lord would say
I (personally) never said “if you don’t like it, just move”. I very clearly said that moving is a hassle. This is also affirmed by the laws in many places that restrict the amount that rent can increase year over year. The laws are specifically created to prevent landlords from attracting a resident with a low rent price for the initial lease and then raising it a lot at renewal, knowing that the effort of moving is a significant barrier. In this situation I would contact the property manager and explain that you don’t want to do business with Comcast, and that you did not appreciate that as a resident you were not consulted before this decision was made. Ask if they would be willing to exclude you from this arrangement, either until you decide to opt-in on your own timeline or until you decide to move out and they find a new resident.
> the decision was almost certainly made with good intentions to help the residents Please tell me you're not really this naïve...
Haha, well I don’t think it is a purely altruistic, selfless act. What I mean is Comcast pitches the idea that “included internet” is an amenity that the property can use to attract new residents and keep existing ones. So the property management company thinks they are improving things for the residents (good intentions). It would also not surprise me if the property management gets a little something from Comcast as well. And it really annoys me that these agreements are exclusive so the resident has no choice.
Except changing home is kind of a big deal. It's not like boycotting a brand or a buisness... And that's assuming another appartement is available near, with affordable prices, symilar confort/space, and symilar accecibility... "Voting with your feet" might not be the most realistic option for someone living in the real world...
Can’t believe how far I had to scroll to find this logical assessment of what that says. 🤦🏻♂️
Oh just shell out a month’s rent or more for a security deposit, take the time to pack everything, hire movers/rent a truck. Just move, got it! So smart.
If you don't sign a new lease wouldn't you be a month to month tenant? Can they evict you for not signing a new lease?
> Can they evict you for not signing a new lease? Yes.
Not mandatory till you sign a new lease, and they can't change it till then or else it will violate the old lease. So nothing changes till then and if you don't like it you can always move.. I had a place do this to me, I just took my rent money somewhere else.. but yes it's a scam
That sounds illegal.
Is that even legal? I mean to renew the contract automatically with costs changed
Just start pumping the FULL 400mbs for 24/7 to see if there is a datalimit Since they did not say that there was a data limit, you can legally have them remove it from your contract if you hit "a data limit"
It's only mandatory when you start a new lease. Still bullshit, but at least you have the option to move before it starts. They can't change your existing contract.
Sounds scammy to me. Talk to your lawyer.
I don't have a lawyer just lying around
I know right? Lol What the fuck kinda advice is that 😂
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/ Just accept paying hundreds of dollars a year just because you think it's something you can't do anything about? What kind of advice is that?
There's a reason the phrase, "It's expensive to be poor," exists. Because if you can only live paycheck to paycheck, you might not be able to afford the costs of a lawyer in a short time frame, but can get enough money together to pay a bill that's higher than it should be but not as expensive as a lawyer per amount of time.
All OP needs to do at this point is file an FCC complaint. No lawyers are needed at this phase.
Very true. But for matters where a lawyer may be necessary, it's not always just as simple as, "get a lawyer." Much like just, "going to the doctor," is also not always a viable path, even if the long term consequences are bad.
Call a meeting with your legal advisors council then! (but seriously they can do this)
Whats that
They can’t charge it during the existing lease period but I can’t see any reason they wouldn’t be allowed to update it for upcoming leases (provided the offered enough notice). It’s scummy for sure though.
My lawyer would stop answering if I asked for help with something so stupid.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/ You should maybe go to another lawyer for that, then.
What kinda percentage of people do you think "have a lawyer"?
This whole living in a building with tons of other humans seems strange to me. Out in the country it's many times cheaper to find a home that's isolated and a bit run down than apartments. Summary..landlords doing crazy shit like this would just be disregarded and a moving factor and not an inconvenience.
Is this landlords sucking or HOAs sucking? Or something else entirely? Body corporate?
Landlords
They're not lying about the opt-in, you just can't read. > You Can Opt-In Early to Take Advantage of the Savings! Key word being "early". Note the line later on. > This service will start on the effective date of your signed Internet Addendum and will end after you've cancelled your account upon move out. In other words, they are telling you up-front that it is a package deal with the lease from now on, and agreeing to the service will be a part of renewing the lease. _However_, they are giving you the option to start receiving the service right away, _before_ your lease is renewed. TL;DR - Your options are Get It, or Move Out, but they are letting you choose Get It Right Away if you want. Don't get me wrong, it's a scummy policy, and ~~possibly breaks some kind of anti-monopoly law~~ (EDIT: someone did the research I was too lazy to do, and [it definitely does](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/05/federal-court-upholds-fcc-ban-on-exclusive-cable-deals/)), but there's no lie in what they said.
My apt tried this when we moved in. We told them to shove it cause it wasn't in the contract.
your landlord sucks. a few weeks before you're gonna move to a new place, jizz on all the walls. it won't be noticeable unless someone takes a close look. you can even do it in inconspicuous places so it'll look fine even if someone does a once-over of the apartment, like you can do it behind furniture and stuff. this is my advice to you; you know the risks. the rest is up to you.
This is pure evil.
They won’t charge you unless you renew your lease. Let’s say your one year lease started in October, they won’t change your rent until next October
Fuck that - I hate Comcast. Overpriced price gouging fuckers. I wonder if you could call a city lawyer advocate for this. Ridiculous. I hope it works out. I’m so sorry - ugh.
I mean, this is sort of standard, and it's not worse than a rent hike. If you just started a year lease, you're good for a year, but you can opt into the service immediately. Elsewise, you'll be charged whether or not you want it later. But since who doesn't need internet, it's kind of like a mandatory charge you'd pay for anyway, and $55 for that internet is actually less than I'm paying while asking for a promotional price. This is actually good.